xAI employees are under pressure as Elon Musk has issued a 48-hour ultimatum, demanding they submit reports on their work. The reports must detail their achievements over the past month and their future plans. This demand is reminiscent of similar directives issued by Musk in the past. Previous ultimatums have led to significant layoffs, notably the data encoding team.
Musk’s demand for detailed progress reports and future plans is a common practice across his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, to gauge employee productivity. The timing of this latest request is notable given the current turmoil at xAI. The company has undergone restructuring, including layoffs, while simultaneously initiating new hiring efforts. This review is a standard performance assessment across all his companies and its occurrence during a period of instability is noteworthy.